JACS Spirituality Pages

JACS: Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons, and Significant Others

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The Jewish Gratitude Blessing from Aaron Z.

I believe that any person who has wandered into the "settlement" of the Twelve Steps from the wilderness of active addiction qualifies to say this blessing on all four counts.

In the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim (219:1-3), we learn:

Four categories of people

should express particular gratitude to God:

Those who have completed sea voyages,
Those who have arrived at settlements after passing through the desert,
Those who have recovered from an illness, and
Those who have been freed from prison . . .

What is the blessing they recite?

Blessed are You, Lord our God,

Ruler of the universe,

Who is gracious even to those who may not be worthy --

You have graciously extended great kindness to me.

Those who hear the recitation of this blessing should respond:

May the One Who has graciously extended great kindness to you continue to do so.

Our "voyage", wherever it took us, was one long, strange trip. We have seen the monsters of the deep, and it was us. We have suffered the self-inflicted isolation of those who have to endure long trips at sea. And we have been a bit warped by a kind of emotional scurvy, to the point where expressing our feelings and relating to and trusting others are fraught with all the fear and wonderment of a baby's tottering first steps. Many of us have never lived life on its own terms, but we are here to learn . . .

And we have been through the wilderness too -- whether reduced to "on the street" living or not, our lives themselves became parched with hopelessness and dusty with lies. And it doesn't matter whether our journey was for forty months or forty years -- if our journey has brought us to the spiritual reawakening and life-renewing miracle of recovery, then we have come to the right place.

Recovered from illness? No . . . not yet, but recovering. As one of my best NA buddies, Paul B. put it, "If they ever find a pill to cure addiction, I'll take two of them!"

But "freed from prison?" Definitely! I have spoken on behalf of my fellowship once at a prison, and with God's help I will do so again. And I will tell you the three "revelations" that experience gave me.

Number one, that it was only because recovery caught me before the police did that enabled me to be sitting on the other side of the room that night -- looking back, there were more than a few close encounters with the law and incriminating circumstances that could easily have led to a different sort of "time."

Number two, I found that I had at least as much in common with my brother addicts in prison as I do with my fellow congregants at a Shabbat morning kiddush -- maybe even more, as we recovering addicts are no longer so socially inclined to leave out the bad stuff. One of the more significant spiritual lessons I have learned in my recovery is to look beyond appearances and to realize that, especially in matters of the heart and soul, most people have more in common than the history of human intolerance would ever suggest.

But the most exhilarating discovery of all was how great it feels to walk out of a prison and not be stopped! Joni Mitchell's wise observation -- that you never know what you've got until it's gone (or until you're this close to losing it) -- remains as true as ever. Indeed, that recollection of being on the precipice of losing it all is a powerful motivator of many an addict's recovery -- and continuing gratitude.

And what does it mean to be freed from prison? To feel a giddy bit more alive and vibrant. To be willing and able to take some time to stop and smell the roses, watch the sun set, or head over to a meeting. And most of all -- to have choices, choices that always seemed to dance between our ears but never beyond when we were still using.

I remember a line from a Bob Dylan song back in the early seventies: "Sometimes I think this world is one big prison yard, And some of us are prisoners, the rest of us are guards." And that's what I believe today -- that we're either prisoners of our own passions, past, and/or distorted thinking -- or else we grow to the point where we incorporate some spiritual principles into our lives. And then guard them. When we care enough about something, we want to keep and protect it. The Hebrew term for someone who observes the Sabbath, for example, is Shomer Shabbos -- literally, a Sabbath guarder or guardian.

So maybe Mr. Dylan was right, and maybe that is the great spiritual challenge that ultimately confronts us all: to grow beyond the confines of our own ego, selfishness, impulses and arrogance by adopting spiritually healthier principles and practices in our lives that uphold us even as we try to uphold them. We may have learned this lesson the hard way, but maybe that will make it harder to forget. It certainly is one more thing to be grateful for -- and also well deserving of the Jewish gratitude blessing. It is, I suspect, the only blessing that can never be recited in vain.